Doctors in the US have transplanted a full, live pig heart into a human patient.
In a landmark first-of-its kind surgery, doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine outside Washington DC have successfully transplanted a genetically modified pig heart into a 57-year-patient with terminal illness.
The patient, Maryland resident David Bennett, is doing well three days after the surgery, the university’s medical center said on Monday, as doctors who performed the operation revealed the transplanted heart was working normally and creating the pulse and pressure associated with the human heart.
The surgery took place on Friday and took about eight hours.
Although the patient is still connected to a heart-lung bypass machine which was keeping him alive before the operation, doctors said the new heart is doing most of the work and there are no signs of rejection as of now. He is expected to be taken off the machine on Tuesday.
“We are proceeding cautiously, but we are also optimistic that this first-in-the-world surgery will provide an important new option for patients in the future,” Dr Bartley P. Griffith, the lead surgeon in the breakthrough achievement said, while foreseeing a solution to organ shortage crisis in the long run.
While some pig organs and cells, notably its heart valve and skin, have been used in humans before, this is the first time a full porcine heart has been transplanted into a human.
